Steampunk
Steampunk is a genre of literature, movies, and RPGs made popular by (among other things) William Gibson's The Difference Engine. It usually features the following:
- Gears
- Airships
- Steam
- More gears
Some steampunk runs the more realistic, looking at things which were being developed in the 19th century and expanding on them like steam powered road vehicles and the Babbage's Analytical Engine. Others go for the blatantly fantastic with steam powered mechs and colonies on mars.
The typical setting has many of the trappings of Victorian England, such as top hats, monocles, and parasols. It may also be reminiscent of the American Old West. Basically, anything between 1840 and 1900 is fair game.
Steampunk works often depict things like a society with a thin facade civility overlying the worship of science, which in turn is just a cover for the cold, ugly, and messy reality; or an aristocracy supported by technology maintained and operated by the poor.
Problems
Like many things Steampunk can awesome if executed with care, attention to detail and the the nature of the technology and time frame that it is drawing upon. Alas, much of modern steampunk work gets a lot of well-deserved hate for being only skin-deep, as lamented in the semi-viral music video, "Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk)". Some fa/tg/uys have declared that we should dub this debris of the steampunk genre "cog fop" and move on to Dieselpunk.
Some RPG settings that may be considered steampunk include the following:
- Eberron
- DragonMech
- Sorcery & Steam
- Inland Empire
- Echelon
- Airship Pirates
- Iron Kingdoms
- Some elements of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game setting, notably the Mana Wastes
At least three steampunk-inspired tabletop skirmish games exist:
